


Balance

by ProwlingThunder



Series: 100+ Words [32]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Everybody Important Lives, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22045348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: You cannot save someone if you're dead.
Series: 100+ Words [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/748548
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gracethescribbler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethescribbler/gifts).



Ben crawls up the ledge purely through stubbornness; Palpatine has taken all of what he had to give, with barely a few snatches for himself, carefully hidden away. He'd learned to always hide a little, with Snoke. Never offer more than he was willing to risk, never expend all his energy; easier to submit than to be wrung dry. Nothing he learned or did as Kylo Ren is ever going away.

Would it be easier to die? Yes. But would it be the right thing? No, the easy thing was rarely right. So he lives, clinging to life. Lives and climbs until the sheer wall breaks away, flattens off into a floor.

Emperor Palpatine is nowhere to be seen. The throne is gone, too.

Rey is on the floor, so pale and still.

He throws himself at her at once, hand at her throat, frantically hunting for a pulse. A voice from somewhere behind him, familiar and unknown, bids him to calm down, and then he can _feel_ his father guiding him, voice closer at hand, and _there,_ he feels it. A pulse. A shallow breath.

She's alive.

Ben doesn't have much to give her, when he presses his hand against her belly. If he gives her everything, he dies, and you cannot save someone if you're dead. But he can give her a little, until her pulse is stronger, at least.

His vision is graying and he wavers when he's done, but he manages to find enough of himself, leaning on his father's ghost, to stagger himself to his feet, hauling a scavenger up into his arms.

She weighs more than she used to, more muscle than the last time he carried her, somehow. She's been eating pretty well.

Ben came here in a half-dead TIE fighter but he's pretty sure Rey has a better ship, and Han is more than happy to show him the way there, show him how it all comes together.

It's a tight fit, two grown adults and a ghost. Somewhere in the Force there's a muttered grumble Ben decides to ignore in favor of staying awake to pilot.

Rey lives.

This isn't the end of the story. It couldn't be the end of the story, two little words and a period.

Rey lives and then she gets better. Rey Palpatine's story ends. Kylo Ren's story ends.

Rey Skywalker and Ben Solo's story is just beginning.


End file.
